Farewell
by BumbleLellie
Summary: ONESHOT: Beth and Daryl are a beautiful love story. After the events in the latest epiode, I am exploring my emotional response and that of particular characters. I hope to do it justice.


**_That episode devastated me. I love bethyl; I love bethyl with my soul and it's like losing a little bit of someone or something I had dreams set on. Even so, absolutely fantastic actress and wonderful character. So this is my farewell._**

**_It's in two parts, the first being an immediate response and the second honouring her body, both from Daryl's point of view. _**

_All he could think was that he hadn't even said hello, let alone had he said goodbye. _

_Walking into that building, the harsh unnatural glow of the hospital lights lit up the shiny floor, the small gleams led to her. Something should have told him he was unnerved, something should have rung like alarm bells in his head. But what difference would that have made? Anything man had made sent shivers up his spine these days. _

_Weeks, it had been weeks since he had last seen her. And she was so much the same as the Beth he had in his head. But she was so much different too. There was the same stained polo, her faded jeans and the cowboy boots she loved so much. A same lost hopefulness across her features, the small crinkle of her nose and wet eyed look as she stared at him, and he back at her. And yet, he hadn't breathed yet, hadn't relaxed. He still needed her over her, tangible next to him. He stared intently at the halo of fluffy yellow hair; hoping if he kept his eyes on her that this time she couldn't be taken away._

_God, weeks searching, running and fighting for this. And there she was. Thank heavens, there she was! All her hope, the ridiculous insistence in good people and happy ending, and she was here. All her hope lead her to this moment, it fed her and kept her alive for him. She was invincible. _

_Protected herself against all odds and even now the promise of her really coming home was too much. They swapped her over, her feet reached them and Rick had her. He let out a breath. She kept coming, searching his eyes with a small smile. Closer and closer. His hand touched her; the warm realness of her shocked him. Normally when he tried to touch her she melted away. He looked passed the red crescents of her bravery on her cheeks, boring momentarily into the never ending darkness of her grateful eyes. He felt like he had been saved. _

He drank back some moonshine. Choking on the burning taste because it had her written all over it. But wasn't that why he chose it? His eyes hurt more. Fuck, he hated crying but the whimpering noises wouldn't seem to stop as if some internal mechanism had finally snapped the moment he saw-

No, no that's why he was drinking. That's why he started on the fucking moonshine in the first place.

_She was so limp. She fell back like a little child that had been hit, her precious blood spraying out behind her. Something in him broke, disconnected he aimed deaf until the sound of the shot and then deaf again after. There was no satisfaction. Instead a panic boiled over, a lost grief struck him to the core. _

_He stared at her crumpled body. Unnaturally still. Unnervingly haunting. _

She was still warm when he carried her out, holding her close to his chest and pretending they were on their way to a white trash brunch like before. Like he could prop her up and she would sing for him, beg him for secrets about his past life or instil some hope. Her cold lips didn't move.

And then there was Maggie. She was crying on the floor. They shared their grief together, the woman he had been so angry with for refusing to look for her sister. It didn't mater now, it hardly mattered at all. Beth was dead, and the least he could do was bring her home.

He took another sip, swilling it around his mouth and wincing as he swallowed. It was dark now, the grass was wet but it was silent. He honoured her with his drink, toasting her with wet eyes and thinking about the chain of events that brought them here. Anger displaced the integral reality of loss.

The last thing that she had said.

''I won't leave you.''

She was a liar, a fucking liar. Because she had gone and left him here. He was trapped in this walker strewn earth, in pain and anger. Without her. She left him alone. She promised, she fucking promised.

_He had cleaned off the blood. Then he clumsily tried to brush her hair his hands shaking too much to make a real job of it. Carol helped. Silently she helped comb out the long golden tresses, laying them over her shoulders in shiny, wispy waves. He asked her to dress her too. In nice clothes, new things they raided. But he kept the cowboy boots on, the small silver chain and love heart in his pocket. He thought how she would thank him, biting a heavy breath back. _

_She was beautiful. _

_All yellow hair and porcelain skin, the marred scars blurring in with her complexion as tears stung his eyes. They prayed for her. They cried for her. And Daryl stood apart, the numbness crashing over him with a disgusted calmness. His inbuilt anger dimming out for this moment. The last moment he got to see her. _

And they covered her with earth on a grassy mound in a foreign churchyard. Wild flowers were woven together around the crafted cross; her name immortalised in knife scratched letters. Somewhere south of here lay her father with their prison brethren, and beyond that her mother and brother were laying side by side in their graves. It seemed a lonely death.

For Daryl it seemed a lonely life.

He knelt thinking about her smile, about her laugh and infuriating optimism. He thought about what she was and what she wanted. All the things that she had said to him, and the possibility of the depths of the things she didn't. Then he thought of everything he had said, and things he hadn't, not even saying them now in his own head. She was a good kid. She had changed his mind.

And so he knelt reminding himself there were still good people. He had found good people. And yet somehow the world had lost the best person it had made.

He hadn't even said hello.

And now he never could say goodbye.


End file.
